


To Behold

by mygenderisconfused



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Beholding Avatar Powers (The Magnus Archives), Breaking the Fourth Wall, Character Death, Description of Dying, Holding Hands, M/M, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:35:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26906716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mygenderisconfused/pseuds/mygenderisconfused
Summary: "The real servants, the ones who fed it the most- they are the ones who watched all of us. They listened to every moment of your horror and pain and yet did nothing- the perfect manifestation of the Eye.”
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	To Behold

The tower of the Panopticon looms over the landscape surrounding it, casting a shadow over the scorched earth. Despite the immenseness of it all, the doors creak open when Jon approaches them, beckoning the both of them inside. 

“Do you think he’s in there?” Martin asks, gazing up at the spire. “Will this really put an end to it?”

Jon can feel the tape recorder whirring away in his hand. “It wouldn’t’ve turned on if there weren’t something important. We… we have to go in.”

“Okay. I’ll… be behind you.” Jon tightens his grip on the recorder but nods, crossing beneath the arch of the doorway. 

Once they’re both inside, the doors swing shut again, the only light now emanating from the top of the tower itself. Even from this far away, Jon can make out a silhouette in the box at the top- a figure, watching, waiting, observing the rest of the Panopticon almost serenely. 

“Jon.” It’s Elias’ voice, though they all know now it is not Elias standing up there. “And Martin. You came.”

“We came to stop you,” Jon says, stamping down any tremor in his voice. 

“To stop all of this. We can’t let the world just stay-”

“Oh, Jon.” Elias cuts him off, and the faint silhouette twirls the thin line of a cane in its shadow. “Don’t give us a cliche hero’s monologue now. That would be disappointing.”

Jon goes to respond but Martin interrupts first. “Us? Who is ‘us’?”

“Your audience,” Elias says, with a tone of exasperated patience. “They’ve all been very interested to see what happens next.”

“What audience? Have you trapped people here?” Martin asks, saving the silence that almost befalls them- for Jon can’t muster up a response, not while he’s trying to catalogue the odd feeling settling into his bones. 

“No, no, of course not.” He dismisses the idea like it’s preposterous in and of itself. “They came here willingly. They wanted to watch you.” 

They’re both silent now, as Elias taps his cane on the ground, hard enough to be audible all the way down. The walls of the Panopticon are covered in cells, built so that the Watcher can look down on all the prisoners. As Jon looks at them though, he notices that… the bars are on the wrong side. Rather than being constructed with the intent of caging in an unruly prisoner within the cell, they look to be placed to cage in anyone standing within the center of the Panopticon.

Jon realizes then, what the gnawing feeling within him is. He’s being watched.

Though he sees no one within the cells, it feels like there are hundreds, even thousands of eyes that bore into him from each one, switching from him to Martin and sometimes up towards Elias before coming back down to rest. 

“You never truly served the Eye, Archivist.” Elias’ voice brings Jon’s attention back up, despite the roar of the gazes upon him. “And, loathe as I am to admit it… perhaps neither did I. The real servants, the ones who fed it the most- they are the ones who watched all of us.” The silhouette shifts, and Jon knows somehow he means to indicate the tape recorder he still has clutched in his hand. “They listened to every moment of your horror and pain and yet did nothing- the perfect manifestation of the Eye.” 

“I don’t understand,” Jon manages out, reaching blindly with his free hand just so he can feel Martin’s palm settle against his own. “I never saw anyone else-”

“You couldn’t have seen them. Do you really think they would put themselves in danger, risk anything happening to them just to indulge in their toys? Of course not. No, they’re quite comfortable, all of them, safe in their oasis of a world that has not seen the apocalypse- but with that safety they got bored, and what better alleviation for boredom than to revel in the suffering of someone you’ll never meet? And when _that_ wasn’t enough- they made it themselves, wrote their own versions of what they thought might happen to you and everyone else.” 

“Why tell us now?” Martin asks, clutching Jon’s hand like it’s his lifeline. “Why?”

The silhouette shrugs. “To watch what would happen if you found them out. Why else would they do anything other than to watch the results? And, well… if they aren’t happy with it, they’ll write it again until it makes them happy.”

Jon’s chest is tight, and he leans against Martin in an attempt to catch his breath. Too late though, he realizes something is wrong, stumbling when he slides against and nearly through Martin’s arm. “Jon?!”

“I’m fine- or- I don’t know…” A weight is gone from his other hand, and looking down he realizes the tape recorder is lying on the ground. He doesn’t remember letting go of it.

“Oh… of course.” Elias punctuates his words with a sigh of resignment and disappointment. “Listening, I suppose, was fine, but… The Watcher is not meant to be Watched, it seems.”

“What does that mean?” Martin asks, his tone verging onto hysterical as Jon tries to steady himself. “What does that _mean?!_ ”

“Come now, Martin. You know what it means. You saw what happens yourself. The NotThem, Jude Perry, Breekon- you know quite well what happens when the Eye turns its gaze upon one singular entity. If I recall correctly, you… encouraged it, didn’t you?”

“ _No,_ no, I… I didn’t mean for- oh god, Jon.” Martin attempts to cup Jon’s hands in his own, though Jon’s fingers slip through his. With rising panic, Jon realizes he can see the outline of Martin’s hands _through_ his own. 

“Martin,” Jon whispers, as a whisper is all he can manage. The eyes all around him bore down harder, with a perverse desperation to see, to know, to catalogue every shaking breath and every tear that manages to fall free. With a vague note of regret, he wonders if this is what every one of those things he smote felt in its final moments.

He is still bound to the Eye in a way, he knows, for it delivers on his curiosity- and he Knows in that moment that it is not what they all felt. His precise final moments have yet to come, and they will be so, so much worse.

Martin’s hands tremble where they are loosely placed around his own, and he says something that is lost to Jon over the pounding in his own skull. His vision is beginning to blur, but he can see before it goes entirely that Martin stumbles as well, the edges of his form beginning to fuzz. He wishes belatedly for the Eye to have been kinder, to have let them both go at the same time. 

He does not know if he can compel anything anymore, Know anything, and so inserting knowledge into someone else’s mind also feels like a stretch. If he can, though, he imparts his last shred of knowledge to Martin- ‘ _I love you.’_

o0OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0o

A tape recorder whirs on the cold stone floor of the Panopticon. Around it is silence, heavy and thick after the panic of a few minutes prior. 

The silence breaks- a man’s voice, that of one self-satisfied after a job well done- “Statement ends.”

"Thank you all, really," he continues. "I couldn't have done it without you. And to think, if no one had paid any mind, all those years building my institute would have been for naught. But you _did it._ You couldn't keep your curiosity in check- like a car crash, you just had to see what happened to those poor souls stuck in the middle of it all. Later, you'll bemoan the tragedy- how much you wish you could've helped them, what you would've done if you had been there- but you did none of it. You sat and you listened and then- you _Watched._ Despite knowing already what happens when so many eyes begin to observe one tiny point, you just had to watch- drink up one last bit of terror and fear and a desperation to live. Do not think I am blaming you- for of course, I Watched as well. And that makes us one and the same, doesn't it?

"You will have to pardon me. There is still so much more to observe. I am certain all of us can find something new to turn our gazes upon, hm?"

The tape recorder clicks off, this time for good.

**Author's Note:**

> anyways. haven't been able to stop thinkin about,,, what if WE'RE the eye all along,,,,, sorry not sorry 
> 
> if this is how the podcast ends you all know i called it


End file.
